New Ambulance station open at Craigleith

New ambulance station

Duncan McKinlay, Grey County Warden; Mike Muir, Director of Grey County EMS; and Al Barfoot, chair of the Transportation and Public Safety Committee were on hand for the official grand opening of the new EMS station in Craigleith. This will be the first permanent EMS station for The Blue Mountains.

THE BLUE MOUNTAINS - The ribbons have been cut on a new state-of-the art ambulance station, newly built in Craigleith at the base of Blue Mountain.
The 4,000 square-foot building has room enough for three ambulance vehicles, with high-tech, air-scrubbing technology to keep the vehicle bay full of clean, breathable air.
The station is complete with storage for oxygen, medical and extra supplies. There's access to the oxygen storage from the outside, so the supplier doesn't have to enter the building to re-fill tanks.
Inside there's a common room with kitchen, washrooms and office space. Of course there's a red phone in each area, which rings when there's a call.
The ambulance station is staffed for 12 hours per day (from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m.) with two paramedics and one ambulance vehicle. During the busy ski season, there are typically two trucks and four paramedics on site with coverage from 10 a.m. to midnight.
The station is located behind the existing Fire Station 2 off Grey Road 19.
Initially, Grey County EMS had a trailer on the Fire Station property and shared the fire department building because they had no local station of their own.
Grey County EMS director, Mike Muir, said the sharing agreement was supposed to be a temporary 6-month set-up. That was in 2003, and EMS just now have their own station.
Muir said the goal for Grey County EMS in The Blue Mountains is 24-hour coverage, but that's a long-term vision.
The station was officially opened with a ribbon-cutting ceremony on Thursday, November 22.